P.S. How To Increase Your Sales By 300%

Why have a P.S.?
A certain Christian Godefrey, one of Europe’s most successful direct marketers once admitted to Ted Nicholas that for his first 5 years in direct marketing he never used a P.S. When he added a P.S to an already profitable sales letter his response rate increased by an amazing 300%.

 “How can a small thing like a P.S. make that much difference” I hear you ask. Well as a copywriter you would love for your reader to read every word of your carefully crafted letter wouldn’t you? We all know that’s not going to happen, but after the headline the P.S. is the best read part of your letter.

You see what actually happens is that your prospect will read your headline which will obviously interest them enough to find out more. They then look at the bottom of your letter where they find your signature and P.S. People tend to scan through a sales letter picking up on the parts that interest them. Here are 5 types of successful P.S.’s:-

1. Motivate the prospect to take action now.
   An example of this would be “P.S. We will not repeat this offer. Please act now. This offer expires on…..” 
2. Reinforce the offer. 
   Can be very powerful if properly used providing the offer is compelling. 
3. Introduce a surprise benefit. 
   This could just make those ditherers decide and take action. “P.S. I nearly forgot to mention,included in your membership is this beautiful….and best of all it’s free” 
4. Emphasize the price or terms of your offer. 
   An example of this would be “P.S. Send no money now. If you are not completely delighted with…return within 30 days and owe nothing” 
5. Emphasize the guarantee. 
   A money back guarantee takes away the risk for your prospect. “P.S. Don’t forget our no-risk money back guarantee”

I have seen some people experiment with a P.S. longer than the sales letter itself. I don’t really like this and as a rule if you can’t read the P.S. without taking a breath it’s too long.

What about a P.P.S.? I don’t know about you but this appears to me to be a bit desperate, as if you haven’t done a good enough job of selling.

So only one P.S. and always treat it with the respect it deserves, after all it is your letter’s bottom line.

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL. 

The Eye Is a Creature Of Habit

How to make your copy easy to read.
Give the eye what it’s used to. Let’s start with the headline, the most important part of your sales letter. Have a look at these examples:-

HOW TO LOSE A STONE IN ONE WEEK

How to Lose a Stone in One Week

Which is easiest to read? Because they have no ascenders or descenders to help you recognise the word, capital letters are difficult to read. The eye is a creature of habit and we are used to reading lower case type in magazines and newspapers.

Another common mistake is to superimpose the headline over a picture, again this makes it extremely difficult to read. If it’s difficult to read it won’t get read.

Never put a full stop at the end of a headline.
A full stop tells the reader to stop reading, which is not what you want to happen. You will notice in newspapers there are never any full stops at the end of headlines.

If your page is set too wide or too narrow this will make it harder to read. Most newspapers are set at about 40 characters wide, most sales letters online are set at abut 600 pixels. Give the eye what it’s used to.

What typeface should you use?
Again what typeface people are used to, for example, how difficult is this to read? Our eyes are accustomed to reading a serif typeface such as arial or times new roman.

Of course with a lot of copywriting now on websites the combination of colours is endless. Bear in mind however:-

Give The Eye What It’s Used To
   
Give The Eye What It’s Used To

The eye is a creature of habit and finds it much easier to read black typeface on a white background.

Does size matter?
Well in copywriting it certainly does. I think you’d soon stop reading if the type was as small as this, whereas this is far too big. Generally speaking your type needs to be about 11-12 point in size.

You might think it’s not that important how your copy is set out but something as simple as line spacing between paragraphs can increase readership by an average of 12 percent. All the research and hard work will be for nothing if no one can read your copy so do yourself a favour and “Give the eye what it’s used to” 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

Get To the Point

When you start to write your sales copy…get to the point! 
If you drone on aimlessly your reader will very quickly lose interest. Here are a few things to avoid. Subtleness, subtlety will cost you response because again some readers will not appreciate it and will therefore lose interest. Cleverness for the sake of being clever will again lose you response. In jokes…in fact humour can be a dangerous thing altogether because everyone’s sense of humour is different. So just get to the point.

How do you know if you are getting to the point? Well here are a few opening phrases that I use a lot to help me.

1. For example…

Using this forces you to actually give an example and therefore get to the point.

2. Why? Because…

This is quite a clever one because you are putting yourself in your prospects position who will naturally be asking the question “Why?” By asking it and then answering it for them you are immediately building rapport with that person. Again by answering the question you are forcing yourself to get to the point.

3. The reason is…

Using this again forces you to be specific. You are offering evidence which is by it’s very nature specific.

4. I have something you want.

This is a really good one to use, just think about it. 
If I said to you “I have something you want” what would your reaction be? 
Of course you would want to know what it is…wouldn’t you? You are then drawn into the rest of the sales copy to find out what you’re missing out on.

Is there a risk of someone saying “No, that isn’t what I want”.  If they do say that then they are obviously not the market you are trying to reach. So this shouldn’t happen if you’ve done your homework properly. Don’t forget that by this stage you should know exactly who your target market is and what it is they want.

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

Put Drama, Power And Passion Into Your Benefits

What’s the difference between Benefits and Features?
A lot of people struggle with this one. You will hear time and time again from copywriters that your copy must be full of benefits. Your problem is how you determine the difference. Ok let’s look at some everyday examples. If you have a hairdressing salon it might look something like this.

Feature: -

1. We have 10 of the best trained stylists.
    
2. The most up to date salon including fully adjustable seats.
    
3. We stock only the best brands of hair products.
    
4. We have 3 of our own fully trained nail technicians.

Benefit: -

1. Fully trained redesign specialists means we will give you at least 5 brand new drop dead gorgeous hair designs to choose from.

2. Which means, no more uncomfortable hair washes leaving you with a sore neck.

3. Which means, our products will condition your hair to leave it silky smooth and manageable.

4. Which means you can complete your new look by having your nails beautifully manicured.

It’s a good idea before you start writing to make a list of the features of your product. To do this properly you have to really know your product. Beside each one write “which means” then write a benefit for your reader. If you can’t think of a benefit chances are it’s not an important feature.

Some writers take this a step further. The highly acclaimed Ted Nicholas for example writes as many benefits as he can think of on 3×5 cards. He uses short action words which are appealing to the reader always keeping in mind WIIFM.

The only reasons your reader will be interested in your product are the benefits they will gain from it, remember people are only interested in themselves. Quite often when you are going through this process of listing the benefits you discover your headline.

You then need to decide the order of the benefits, ie placing the strongest benefit first then the second and so on. These can be used in bullet form or weaved into your copy or sometimes even a combination of the two.

So remember, you have to think Benefits, Benefits and then more Benefits, you can never have too many!

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

The Long Versus Short Argument

How long should your copy be?
I’m sure you’ve read a lot of discussions around this particular question…I know I have! So I’ll ask it again “How long should your copy be?” Well the first thing it depends on is what your product is. If for example your product is a tube of toothpaste…there’s only so much you can say about a tube of toothpaste without boring your reader to tears. Use short copy. If on the other hand your product has many features and benefits use long copy. The more you tell the more you sell.

Some people believe that a reader will not read long copy…nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the most successful direct mail letters and adverts over the years have used long copy. The world famous Claude Hopkins once wrote five pages of copy for Schlitz Beer which moved from fifth place to first place in just a few months.

Research does show that readership falls off quite quickly for the first fifty words, but slows quite dramatically between fifty and five hundred words. In his first famous Rolls-Royce advert David Ogily used 719 words. He literally piled one fascinating fact on top of another. In his last paragraph he wrote the line “People who feel diffident about driving a Rolls-Royce can buy a Bentley”. The number of motorists that picked up on the word diffident concluded him to believe his copy had been thoroughly read. So he used 1400 words in his next advert!

Every piece of copy you write is a complete sales pitch for your product. You have to treat it as though this is the only chance you will ever get to sell the product to your reader. The more facts you tell the more you will sell.

Here is a quick story about Max Hart (of Hart, Schaffner & Marx) arguing with his advertising manager George L. Dyer about long copy. Dyer said “I’ll bet you ten dollars I can write a newspaper page of solid type and you’d read every word of it,” Naturally Hart scoffed at the idea. “I don’t have to write a line of it to prove my point,” Dyer replied. “I’ll only tell you the headline: This Page Is All About Max Hart.”

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.